


In the ruins of me

by winterysomnium



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Curse AU, Established Relationship, Kisses, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Death, Mentions of surgery, a bit of bonding, a bit of greek mythology involved, between batkids, involves magic, kind of, let me know if you want anything else in the tags, mentions of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 11:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6516808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterysomnium/pseuds/winterysomnium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce’s alive, in his twentieth story office, faking misunderstanding after another, Tim the CEO now and all he wants is to get back to being, to Dick’s expression not turning into run down gentleness, for Damian’s scowl not to be hurt, for San Fran feeling close and not distant. </p>
<p>aka</p>
<p> The one where Jason and Tim get cursed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the ruins of me

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for a while, I hope you will like this story.

Jason kisses his chin, the stubble stings, Tim throws a hand on Jason’s face and he forgets.  

The heat suffocates him, he’s bleeding out, there’s sand in his syllables. (No more.)

He’s startled awake. Bruce’s alive, in his twentieth story office, faking misunderstanding after another, Tim the CEO now and all he wants is to get back to being, to Dick’s expression not turning into run down gentleness, for Damian’s scowl not to be hurt, for San Fran feeling close and not distant.

What he gets is a tender ache, repaired skin healing over hollows and Ra’s did a good job, on both the surgery and the re-splitting of him, but Tim did good too and he’s found Jason, somewhere between fighting Dick and the plane to where Bruce was, thousand years ago, carving, painting the stone.

Jason sleeps on his couch now, most days, shows up in bed once in a while, shakes him awake so he can kiss him (with words), too short, he leaves with nothing but his warmth.

Sometimes he shakes awake himself, hunched and tense, says: “I think I’ve killed you again.” and doesn’t touch his guns that day and night and Tim says: “I didn’t go all out that time.” and Jason resents (himself, either way) and Tim thinks there’s too much in between to ever make them work; they’re both guilty, in different ways, there’s a break up on the back of their throats, every day. _For the other_ , it says, like a note, a text that’s unsent and has been for years, as Jason makes him toast too early in the morning and Tim hires him as a bodyguard, for Tim Wayne, Tim Wayne needs one, after the shooting and the injury and Jason’s pissed but Bruce is concerned (for whom?) and it pisses him off more, so he stays, and he wears suits that don’t smell of earth and wood and rot and Tim Wayne takes him to Sundollars, puts his feet on his lap at the end of the day and Tim Drake, Tim Drake lets him take the steel cages off his feet.

Jason murders him less, Tim wants him more.

There’s I love you on the back of their throats now.

(It’s been a month too many.)

Jason says: “I think something will ruin this.” into Tim’s unaware, sleepy mouth, the cut and dry stubble. (Me.)

—

The next day, Tim’s suffocating.  

Tim spits sand and heat and blood stains show on his shirts, and he’s trying to wake up, to shake himself awake (Jason, what do you do?) but it’s Jason, Jason breaks his fall, splits his own lip with Tim’s elbow because Tim can’t count steps, the stairs disappear, he buckles over, he smudges his palms.

(Jason calls Bruce.)

“There’s something wrong with Tim! There’s –” but there’s something dripping, there’s something thrown onto his shoulder, heavy and damp and there’s a splinter, stuck in his finger, scraping his nail. There’s dirt, in his mouth, his eyes, the gaps between his fingers. His knuckles bruise.

(He screams.)

—

“A Prometheus curse?” Tim slurs, half unconscious, dazed, trying to keep his thoughts where they belong, _where’s Pru_ something in him asks and he’s tearing up the sixth shirt in a row, he’s trying to steer a car and Jason’s skin burns, dirt shifting into heat and molecules to explosions, to collapsed lungs, into side disappearing and his arm, limp, wrecked. He barely looks up, too far from Tim, hears him through the thick atmosphere of mud, of ground, overhead, and he winces, as Tim coughs up another fistful of sand.

Damian’s banned from the Batcave, Dick left all of the colour in him somewhere neither can see and he trembles, as Tim shifts from a dizzying freefall to sweating and curling his fingers, grasping at formless grounds, as Jason stares at his watch, resigned, scared, so much smaller; Bruce looks like he might be dying, himself.

“In a way, yes,” Zatanna answers, from the computer screen, already there when Bruce drove the both of them into the hollow of the cave, already waiting when Dick ran to the three of them, barely breathing, everything, forgotten (everything, enhanced).  

“Are they going to die?” Dick asks and Zatanna turns his way, and it’s not the movement that glitches but the screen, a flicker, uncharacteristic, a fluke. (It might have just been the dread, wiping his vision apart.)

She shakes her head. “No,” she answers, holds her elbows and the subtle, shallow relief gentles the wires of Dick’s muscles, snapping off of his frame. He leans back, into himself, into his shoulders, looks at Bruce, then at Zatanna, in repetition of two.

“Unlike Prometheus, they won’t die. But I don’t know if – if what they’re going through isn’t worse.” She sighs, a quiet, rueful sound. “They will stay like this, reliving the mere moments before they were ever about to die, over again.”

“There has to be a way to stop it. Curses can be broken,” Dick urges, and if he’s saying this because he _knows_ this, or if it’s just him trying to create a spell of his own, he doesn’t know. If he says it enough, it could be true. It has to be true.

(It has to be real.)

“Yes, but in very specific ways. I’ve never even heard of this curse being cast more than once, not since Zeus cursed Prometheus thousands of years ago. You need someone who has died and lived again to cast it, and you need someone who has died and lived again to be a catalyst for the curse itself. Both of these circumstances happening at the same time – you can understand how rare the opportunity is, how meager the possibility. As far as I know, the last person cursed ended their life themselves, in a moment of lucidity.”

“That’s not an option here,” Bruce interrupts, firm, like he’s erasing the words, the mere sounds, from the echo of the cave.

“I know. But be prepared. It isn’t only about the body, but the about mind, as well. Even my magic wouldn’t be able to calm them, right now.”

“We _have_ to find out how to break the curse.”

Zatanna nods, understands. Her gaze slides towards Tim, towards Jason, towards the blood, dripping down his thumb, the dip of his palm. She faces Bruce, again. “In many cases, you have to reverse the spell, word by word. It’s an ancient curse, it might be the source of this method. I’ll look into it.”

Bruce nods too, curt, watches her before she disappears, a thank you on his mouth. “We’ll find out who cast it,” he says, in answer.

Tim asks: “Where’s Pru?” and Dick touches his shoulder, like a noise of distraction, a splitting of time. He finds his shirt and it’s already ripped, already curved around Pru’s neck, already protection, a pressure.

Then Jason sits up, sluggish and dazed, focuses on Bruce, shaken. “You made it,” he murmurs. Murmurs and smiles, closes his eyes. (And something snaps; starts anew.)

There really isn’t much research to do.

(There’s only one person it could have been.)

—

“I think I’m – I’m getting used t-to this,” Tim says, into the press of his fingers, against a wound that doesn’t bleed, crunching on the ice chips Alfred brought in to repel the heat, to stop the drying out. “I can think. Sorta,” he slurs. (The stitches break.)

“When I said that something’s going to ruin this – ruin _us_ , I definitely didn’t – didn’t mean a chapter from the huge ass mythology book we have in the library that – that faintly smells of apples because I spilled juice on it that one time.” Jason sighs, rubs at the fabric of his jeans. “I meant more – more _me_ , shooting some dickhead and you being angry.”

“How much of a dickhead would the dickhead be?”

“At least this much.” Jason indicates, the distance wavers, Tim tiredly brushes his fingers against Jason’s own, the friction leaving them warm.

“I wouldn’t – break up with you for that. I think. I kinda – I kinda got attached to you. My legs like to lie on your legs and stuff,” Tim answers, breathes through the words. (Pain tries to snatch them away.)

Jason snorts; winces. A movement at the door takes his attention, turns him dizzy, dizzier, until he’s steady, again.

He raises an eyebrow and Damian scowls, closes the door behind himself, stands like a guard, made of duty and Bruce’s blood, tense and solemn, he looks heavy, like he’s too exhausted to carry all of himself, at once.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Tim says, without accusation, with little intent, but Damian finds most words from Tim a punch, an attack he doesn’t know if to dodge or absorb; what to do with it besides return it, as fast as he can.

But he’s sluggish, today. (Both of them are.)

“You’re not supposed to be like that, either,” he says. He catalogues all of the details, the spare bedroom’s bed, the distance that doesn’t exist between them, how Tim’s muscles cramp, all at once, and it’s the Clench, he can barely see and Jason loses all feeling of his insides, his lung refuses to give and take.

Damian’s eyes are drier, sand papery, wetter, throat thick; he’s rebuilding himself on the spot.

“I’ll fix this,” he says, a promise.

They barely hear.

—

Ra’s denies it. Says he has _no reasons for petty curses, Detective_. “Are you staying for dinner?” He sits at his throne and Dick steps ahead, falling forwards to punch him, to distort the smug, amused calm but Bruce holds him back, time spent fighting is time wasted, today.

Cass greets them from the streets and Gotham’s restless but she’s effortless, Steph fidgets from the other side of the suburbs and Babs finally falls asleep on her keyboard, for an hour, two.

Zatanna arrives to Gotham, the next day.

—

“Did you turn off the lights?”

“Alfred did.”

“Who brought the fan?”

“Damian did.”

“If I promise not to cough up sand, do I get to kiss you?”

Jason laughs. “I always knew your sappy side would come out at the _worst_ time possible,” is what he says.

Tim leans in. Puts pressure where it hurts but Jason clutches at his shoulders anyway, their mouths forget, remember, Jason gasps and Tim falls onto Jason’s shoulder, the one that doesn’t destroy itself, the one that stays.

“You were in the city at the time. I think about that, sometimes,” Tim murmurs, into Jason’s teeth, has the desert in his lungs, the ambush under his clothes and he hears Pru; he doesn’t hear anyone else.

“That I weren’t there?”

“Yeah.” Tim trembles, a shiver spreads. (Jason touches his ear.) “I’m not saying it to make you feel guilty,” Tim say, clarifies, now, wishing, back then. “I would never want you to be there. You could have died. _I_ was supposed to.”

“No. You weren’t _supposed_ to. Not in the desert. Neither at the Tower. No one is ever _supposed_ to die. You just – do or don’t. And that’s it.” Jason’s heart races, fear and anger and love, negative.

“Okay, Jason.” Tim nods, lowers his head.

(There are worse places to die in, than the crook of your boyfriend’s neck.)

—

“Ra’s said it wasn’t him,” Bruce answers Zatanna’s furrowed brow, her wary shoulders.

“He’s lying,” Dick follows, right after and Cass knows Bruce disagrees before he even breathes in to speak.

(But it’s Oracle, he was breathing for.)

“He has no reason to lie,” she says.

“He wouldn’t,” Bruce agrees.

“He could also _easily_ be deceiving us. He has a reason to be angry with Tim. Hell, Jason too.”

“I asked Talia. It wasn’t him.”

“And you trust her?!”

“Yes, with this I _do_ , Dick. It must have been someone else.”

“Is it possible to curse themselves, without knowing?” Babs asks, and it’s transparent, where the question is being carried to.

(Zatanna wishes it would help.)

“I haven’t heard of such a case, not with curses like this. But I can’t say it’s impossible.” She wraps her palm around a cup of tea, warms her fingertips. “The good news is, the curse can be stopped. Bad news is, it demands a – quote: rebirth.”

“A rebirth?”

“Does that mean –”

“A change. And the words of the spell, of course.”

“A ‘change’ is a broad term,” Bruce frowns; Dick’s fingers a soundless, restless movement to the flow of their thoughts.

“It’s all I have for now,” Zatanna answers. “Once we know who cast it –”

“Are we going to kill the one who cursed them?” a silhoulette asks, accepting, as if there’s nothing left to fight; they all split their attention, they all find him in the darker places of the cave.

“We’re not killing anyone, Damian.”

“But the curse requires –”

“I told you to wait upstairs.”

“I was –”

a shatter, a window, way above.

“Master Bruce!” Alfred’s voice, urgent, descending.

They do the opposite.

(They ascend.)

—

“Jason, stop. Jason. Snap out of  it, come on – ” Tim’s limping, holding up his palm, in a force unknown, too tired and over him, _through_ him, Jason repeats, too fast, “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch –” and they inch to the window, a puzzle of hundreds, Tim tries to steer him back.

(Bruce is the first to move.)

“Tim, what’s going on?” he leaves to Dick to say, hovers in inches separated, from Jason himself but he’s trapped in the shadow of him, in the slump of his back.  

“Dick! Bruce! He’s just – he  – he tried to jump out of the window. I think he’s just trying to get away from something, he mentioned the Joker –”

“Jason, Jason come back here,” Bruce orders, softer, rougher than they know, but it sounds like a plea, like a promise somewhere between an unlit cigarette and angry mouths. “It’ll be over. You just have to come here.”

And Jason – Jason stops, as if his arm got stuck in Bruce’s fingers instead of his shadow, as if he’s being awakened, from his unconscious memories. “I just wanted to see everyone again,” he murmurs, quiet.

“You can do that. You can do it right now,” Bruce says.

Jason hopes, turns.

(A second later, he faints.)

And Bruce’s there, he’s catching him; Tim slowly, heavily breathes out.

“You’re doing okay, Timbo?” Dick asks him, the shards splitting as he steers Tim’s shoulder, and Tim says: “I’m good.” and waves at Cass, who offers him a wave of her own. “Hey, Cass.”

“Hey.”

“Is he okay?”is his concern, next, and Bruce nods, curling his arms closer, tighter around Jason’s weight. “I think you should stay in separate rooms from now on,” he says.

(And that, that doesn’t soothe any of Tim’s aches, at all.)

“I can’t just leave him alone like that!”

“You won’t. We won’t.”  

“He won’t hurt me.”

“He could hurt _himself_.”

“But – ”

“I have to agree with Bruce here, Tim. I know you’re – _close_ , but this isn’t good for either of you,” Dick interrupts and Tim bristles, pushes away. “No, Tim, listen. Are you sure you can protect him, like this, on your own?” he asks him, reaches out and Tim thinks, tenses, slumps against the sheets.

“I can’t.”

“You can visit each other any time you want. Okay? You can.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll tell you when he wakes up, too.”

“Okay.”

“And Tim. Did Jason – did he say anything _strange_ before you became like this?”

—

“Why didn’t you tell me Tim and Jason are involved?” Zatanna hisses, her voice low and irritated, Cass sees the fight against the low of sleep in her, her shoulders, soaked in coffee tired waking; she puts a hand on her hip, sharp.

Bruce looks like he didn’t think it important, like he’s _shy_ (only for Cass to see) and Dick tries to rub off the awkward feeling in his gut, through his skin, and Cass wishes Steph or Babs were here, to dissolve the residue, to create a reaction, different, coarse, good enough to change the atmosphere.

“They have been for months,” Cass answers and she thinks Bruce didn’t know, not one thing, about it.

Zatanna sighs. “Jason couldn’t have cursed Tim – and subsequently himself – if they are a couple. The curse’s source is _hate_ , not any emotion _itself_.”

“Jason has been submerged into the Lazarus Pit. We don’t really know what state his mind is in,” Dick argues, wishes it wasn’t true. (Cass can sympathize. But –)

“Tim was right. Jason wouldn’t kill him,” she says. (It’s what Babs would want her to say, if she were listening. Is she?)

“Tim talked to me. Jason has dreams – violent dreams,” Dick counters but Zatanna shakes her head, it’s not enough. (It’s not the source.)

“Bad dreams without intent aren’t enough.”

“They wouldn’t want us to talk about them without them,” Damian steps in, and it’s the only thing Damian says, an imitation of his Father, arms an armour, a cage, enclosing his ribs heart lungs; Cass senses something underneath.

Hope, guilt, taints.

Frowning, he turns away. “Someone has to patrol,” Cass reads, from his solemn lips, his unmoving jaw. “I and Robin will go,” she says.

She’s decisive, curt and Bruce trusts her.

(Yet Dick’s gaze is a missile, it follows them to the door.)

“We have to find who did this, _now_ ,” he says, when Cass and Damian are another part of the house, another sphere of thoughts and space.

The missile missed.

(He didn’t catch the lurch, the stutter, inside of Damian’s pulse.)

—

_Hey._

_Heard we’re in solitary now._

hey, Jason

I didn’t want them to separate us but

they had good arguments

_How you holding up?_

_I have a cat walking on my back._

_Correction: I have a cat kneading my back._

Couldve been Titus, I wouldnt complain if I were you.

he weights a ton.

a slobbery ton.

I’m

holding up.

You?

_Yeah._

we can visit each other, I was told

_Did someone talk about any progress to you?_

_Cause I’ve been told zero and it frustrates me to the point I want to smash something._

_(Preferably not a window, again.)_

Not really

they just –

asked me something.

_What was it?_

Something about if you told me something strange before this happened.

Meaning we have no clue who did it.

Jason.

It wasn’t you.

I know you’re freaking out, stop freaking out.

It’s not your fault.

You didn’t do this.

I’m coming over.

You better scoot, okay?

(But he doesn’t, won’t look at Tim, stubbornly, (heart broken), when Tim fills up the space next to him, just as stubborn (heart broken less) “It wasn’t you,” he says. He thinks Jason cries.

(He thinks it’s the worst feeling, to know and hear and never tell.)

He holds him and Jason curls under his heart; he won’t speak.

Tim feels his words, in shudders, in the lunar cycle of Jason’s lungs.

In the morning, in his room, he dials Oracle’s number.)

—

“You’re all a couple of dumbasses,” Babs says as she appears, with lore on her thighs, crowned with things to say and she’s talked to Zatanna, she’s argued with Dick and Tim – Tim wanted to find out himself, because Jason’s delirious, a faint echo of the Pit covering up his skin and there are moments Tim loses too, moments gone and feverish and dying, nothing more.

The IV drip turns his fingers nervous, turns them a bit numb but Jason sleeps and Tim feels like a memory, like he’s a photograph, a moment in front of him, out of reach.

“Zatanna is correct; Jason’s couldn’t have cast the curse. Not by himself; not without the actual phrases being said. In fact, he couldn’t have co-cast it either, unless he had something in common with the person who actually cast it.”

“They both have to be resurrected, for the curse to work, don’t they? They would have something in common already.”

“Something else than that, Dick.”

“Like what?” Bruce asks and Alfred hurts for him, briefly, the most. He decoded all of Bruce’s fears, years ago, and helplessness, helplessness is the engine to many of Bruce’s – unforgiving, unspoken – thoughts. (On default.)

“Not exactly anything physical. Blood relation, birth marks, being born on the same day, none of those would matter.”

“It’s about symbolic relations,” Zatanna explains and Damian stares at the ground, the drip, then Jason and Tim wants to shield Jason when he does, from all of them.

“Symbolic relations? That could be anything!”

“Anything related to Tim, yes.”

“And we’re sure it’s not Ra’s?”

“We’ve already excluded him from having any relation to this.”

“Yeah but based on what, Bruce? His and Talia’s word?”

“ _Dick_.”

“ _What_ , Bruce?”

“That doesn’t give us much to go on, does it? Symbolic relation.” Stephanie jumps in, the irritated flow of their syllables sinking; Babs’ shoulders do too.    

“Sadly, no,” she answers, Jason’s fingers twitch.

(Tim grasps at anything he can.)

“The curse needs a rebirth to be broken, right?” he asks, a touch slurred, minutely, like he’s about to slip away, as if reality is too fast, like Bart, a blur at best. “We don’t necessarily need to know who cast it. As long as we know what that means or _could_ mean. We’re not killing who did it _anyway_.”

“Broadly said, it’s a change,” Babs supplies.

“A change of what?” Steph asks but then Tim buckles, breaks in two and Cass has him, has him before the ground, the blood spills impossibly fast.

“It’s worse than before!” Alfred yelps, pressing his hands against Tim’s own, the tray of tea left behind in Bruce’s arms, thrusts there, the porcelain sang.    

“The longer their body suffers the more their mind does and the more it does, the more they believe it’s real. And the more they believe it’s real, the realer it gets.” Zatanna’s words tremble, uncovered, dug out from her throat. “The painkillers won’t help. But I can,” she adds, seconds after, calmer, as the sparks crackle along the road of her fingers, between the horizon of her hips, a shiver as she breathes in but Tim holds up his hand, faintly, “someone has to be conscious, when we know what to do,” he protests.

“Tim don’t be stupid,” Dick counters, but Zatanna hesitates and Jason snaps awake.

“Why’s there an IV?” he asks, dazed, tries to pry it off, away from the dip of his elbow; Alfred stops him, gently, firm.

(Something in Damian snaps, too.)

“It was me,” he says, as quiet as a winter morning, a summer midday and his feet walk to be the center, his hands fists of defense. “It was me!” he repeats, a summer night.

(The stars turn his way, gravitate.

Like he’s a black hole, he stops time.)

“What?” Bruce asks him, iron, metallic sounds. (Always immune.)

“Me. I cast the curse,” Damian answers, sinks, sinks to the ground under his shoes. “But I didn’t mean to! I swear I didn’t mean to,” he cries out, desperate, small.

“What did you do?” asks Dick, hearing his fear and he doesn’t accuse, asks warmer, but fragile, like ice, thinning under Damian’s feet.

“There was – there was a book. About. Defeating enemies. I didn’t know the curse was an actual spell! And I’ve. I’ve only mouthed the words. I – I didn’t even – think of Drake. While I was reading it.”  The threads of the carpet, worn by wear, is what he talks to, at first. Then, he looks up at all of them, Bruce, Jason, Tim. “I didn’t know.”

“Damian,” Bruce starts, but Zatanna follows the dip in his tone, the whisper of words.

“What book was it exactly? Could you bring it here? It’s important,” she asks of him and he nods, nothing else.

Leaves; ashamed, guilty, scared.

(When he comes back, no one talks.)

“It’s on the 35th page.” The book opens, over Zatanna’s palms.

“You can go for now,” Bruce tells him.

“But I –”

“Damian. Your room.”

“Yes, sir.” His shoulders comply. He glances to Dick, for support, for an apology, extended.

(But Dick’s not looking his way, at all.)

—

The bloodline blurs, Jason holds Tim’s shoulder, Bruce and Dick fight, of course, the anger in them nearly a comfort, Dick thinking Bruce was too harsh, _he’s still a kid, Bruce, he’s still just a kid_ but ( _He’s_ twelve _, Dick, he should_ know _not to read books sent by_ Ra’s), Ra’s, _Ra’s who you said had_ nothing _to do with it, didn’t you_ – and it isn’t until Steph cuts in, like buckets of water, solidified, “Babs was right. You’re a couple of _dumbasses_.” that they’re there again, that they see Cass lifting Tim up, hear Alfred as he commands they move Jason, move Tim, return them to the medical bay, urgently, and it’s an hour after this (two hours into the sun setting), that Scarecrow shows on top of the Wayne Tower, handing out nightmares, the Riddler behind his back, demanding solutions and when things need to go quick, they always go complicated, they always go slow.

It’s Jason and Tim then, the cave, Tim’s sand bucket, and as long as there’s a laugh underneath it ( _too bad Damian is too old to play in sandboxes, huh_ ) they’re okay, they’re alive, they’re at the opposite side of the curse but then they flinch, at the name, a wall builds up in their stomach and Jason’s crumbling it apart but Tim’s stays, ingrown and he blames it on all the desert reappearing inside of him, on the buried palace of distrust and dislike, ebbed away by years, by hesitant smiles and moments of give and take and return, the current tries to steer him, away, the stones trap him where he’s sunk.

“I don’t know what we will do.” He grasps the corners of his shirt, pulls it in tighter, it colours in the outlines and Jason wishes for a little bit of addiction, a little bit of smoke.

“I know what _I_ have to do,” Damian answers and it startles them enough for a cup to fall over, for the blood to drip again (heartbeat elevated), for an earthquake to run through their bones.

He’s dressed in his uniform pants, safe and protective, boots up to the third of his calves but the other half of him is left in a tank top, something they’d rarely seen him wear and there’s no mask and no expression Tim could transcribe, his assassin days’ sword buckled to his hips, a paper held tightly, so tightly his palm folds into a fist.

“I know what has to be done,” he repeats, altered, voice a riddle of its own and it brings, raises no relief, just fear, rushed and sluggish, Damian loosens his fingers, unsheathes his sword.

“Damian –” Jason tries to say but it falls apart, collapses next to the bed, the IV ripped away, through the angle and pace, and Tim stumbles, wary but ahead, forward but reality dips, it sways and he thinks he’s gone, gone until he hears him, hears Damian and the buried trembles aching, the palace, the hot wind behind the windows, the desert and Damian’s inside, he’s inside and he’s the earthquake, the source, everything dry but Tim’s blood, but Damian’s lashes and Tim says: “Don’t be stupid, Damian, don’t be _stupid_.” but he just shakes his head, focus slipping to the paper once more, to the recitation of spells undone. “It won’t help anything!” Tim yells, stops, the sword an arrow shooting at his chest, a moment stopped in time, a distraction.

The challenges, they’re what they’re good at, the tones of games but Damian says: “It’s the only way.”, with a strength made to slice through, through muscles and bones, strength made to kill and Tim grabs the hilt, holds the ridge when Damian tries to shake him away and there’s more blood, a pocketful inside of his palm and now Damian yells, louder: “It will slice through your hand! Let go!” but Tim’s holding on, he’s pushing it up and Damian snaps, resigns.

“If I don’t die you two will!” Convinced, Damian fights the dread, the future of those words; Tim resists, just as strong.

“We’ll figure something out! No one will have to die!”

“It’s my duty to fix my mistakes! _Why can’t you just let me, Drake?!_ ”

“How _could_ I let you!” Tim shouts and Damian’s tears look foreign, slipping off the cliff of his jaw, Tim’s own a stinging antiseptic at the corner of his nose, and he presses at the sword, swaying it to the ground, his blood the rust, it stains, it doesn’t dry and Damian’s gripping at the hilt, his tears held by the same gravity. Tim puts a hand onto his shoulder, suddenly feeling the worst he’s ever felt, feeling like it doesn’t matter the curse doesn’t kill, because it’s decided to kill him now, it’s snapping his neck, it decided for Damian, for both of them and exhausted, he breathes, half away: “We’ll think of something. We will. Not one of us will die. _You_ won’t die. You can’t, you hear me?” And it could be that this was the variable, that this was them, changing.

(Maybe it was the liar who should change, and he’s lied again and he has been dying for days but now he’s dying, for the first time, and he’d want to see Jason, but he can’t see anything, at all, he can’t tell what is colour and what’s not anymore.)

He can’t tell cotton and skin apart.

But he feels Damian nod, the chanson of muscles and blood.

He passes out.

—

Awake, there’s nothing of the curse left.

Titus sleeps on his legs, he feels a bit chilled under his thin shirt, cozily warm where Titus heats him, there’s no sand poured into his mouth, no dry, clumpy stains.

Only his palm aches, the stitches itch and he’s looking for two persons at once, Jason and Damian; Titus raises his head, yawns.

“They nearly didn’t let me out of bed,” he hears, knows, immediately, and Jason’s in the doorway, alive, beautiful, thinner but okay, rolling his eyes at the rest of them, tucked away, somewhere in the (many, many) corners of the house.

“We’re okay,” Tim answers and Jason smiles, hands in pockets, teeth at the doorstep of his lips.

“We are,” he answers, nodding.

“What happened?”

“You ask the guy who was comatose when everything important happened?”

“So nothing _else_ happened? After Damian tried to – Damian is okay, too, right?” he asks, sitting up, sharper.

“He’s good.” Jason calms him, sits where Tim’s knees poke out between Titus’ paws, scoots up when Tim moves to the side, offers the pillow, the headboard and their shoulders touch, a vow, a whole book, whole trilogies full of words. “He’s just a bit, you know. Embarrassed. And ashamed, for unintentionally cursing us. Not that it can be fully blamed on him since it wouldn’t have worked without _me_.”

“The thing you had in common? What was it anyway?” Tim looks at him and it feels like Jason’s ashamed, too. (He scratches the top of Titus’ head, looks away.)

“Zatanna said that probably the fact that we’ve both tried to kill you before. And saw you as a rival and shit.”

“That’s – okay. That’s a bit messed up. I mean, I doubted it was your shared passion of making up creative nicknames for me in the first place but still. Messed up.”

“That’s what Dick said. Steph said it’s _downright fucked up_ and _what are the odds_ , so, you missed one great conversation.”

“I bet.”

Jason toys with the hem of Tim’s shirt, toys with the idea of holding it, for hours, huffs. “I kinda miss our apartment,” he says; traces muscle underneath. “Even your _absolutely_ horrid laundry pile. You know, Alfred made breakfast in bed is awesome and all but Bruce’s sour constipated face behind it kinda ruins it for me.”

Tim laugh; the sound melted, thawed by the warmth in his throat. “He’s just worried. Can’t blame him, can you? It had to be bad pretty bad for them too. We were – a mess. Damian tried to kill himself. Dick tried to protect himself from the situation by getting angry at it and Bruce probably didn’t want everyone to see him kind of – helpless. Which is how he probably has felt.”

“But does he have to ruin every breakfast for me?”

“Stop bitching, you’re secretly super pleased about that.”

“As _if_. But speaking of worried sour faced individuals – Damian sat behind your door the whole time you were passed out. So you should go and tease him about it. Kid thinks no one will ever forgive him and I think he doesn’t even think he _deserves_ being forgiven. Especially by you.”

Tim sighs. “That will be one _immensely_ awkward conversation, you know that, right?” he asks. “But you’re right. He should know we’re not angry. I mean – I haven’t even really had time to process most of it. I have no clue how I feel. Slightly hungry maybe,” he contemplates and Jason snorts.

“Yeah. You would.”

“You know, Jay, listening to all this, I’m not really surprised something like this has happened. In a family like ours?”

“Well, no one’s pregnant yet.”

“Technically, Steph already _was_ pregnant.”

“Oh. Well in that case. You’re right, man. I’m not surprised either. Next week someone is going to find Jumanji in the attic and I’m not going to bat one eye at it because I called it right now.”

“Crap, next week already? I feel like I had enough magic adventures for at least like, the next two months. Give or take.”

“Yeah, I get where you’re coming from there.” Jason nods, smiles. Knocks his shoulder against Tim’s, softly. “But you know, thinking about it, it all it might have been good for one thing.”

“And that is?”

Jason smirks.

“We don’t have to worry about telling Bruce about us anymore, do we?”    


End file.
